Something about everything with pictures.

January 2012

01/31/2012

We went to the bank in Alhambra last weekend and saw this modern art palm tree against an orange building.

I love it with the blue sky. Sometimes my town is orange if you look in the right place.

We saw this neat old car a year ago. It's a Mercury of some kind. Must be early 50's, it's got vestigal fins. I was having a stomach ache from my gall stones, but I didn't know what it was yet. I groaned and took pictures anyway. These tail lights were too good not to share.

Look, a double self portrait that doesn't make me feel fat and ugly. We had big white clouds that day too. Awesome.

01/30/2012

I was sitting on the couch doing nothing yesterday when our neighbor cat Floyd stuck his nose in the open door. I clapped my hands to scare him out, that got Lelu running to see who it was. I'm sure her nose told her. Floyd ran out and around the corner of the house where he peeped and peeped at us. Here's Lelu getting ready to go out there and kick his butt. I closed the door so they didn't fight, this time.

Afterwards Floyd followed Tom around the yard and watched him work, all friendly and calm like he was a good cat. He doesn't know why he can't jump out from under cars and bite my cats. He doesn't know why he can't come in and eat their food. He has no social skills, and very poor boundaries. But he sure is pretty!

01/26/2012

I got over 5,000 hits here because it was Charles Addams birthday. I'd posted a picture and Google images will link to your blog if you use one of their photos. Strange to see so many hits, and glad to have a rational explanation. I've read a lot of very cool blogs that I linked to through pictures I liked, so thanks Google images.

I've been thinking a lot about the compulsion of teenage girls to focus on cute boys and hang their pictures on the wall and gaze and them and get embarrassed. The real embarrassment starts when girls reach an age of comparative reason and realize they used to like...who? I've seen sensible middle aged women blush when they confess to having liked Bobby Sherman. They should be embarrassed! Ok, sorry. Anyhow I posted about Lord Byron and the Baron Von Richthofen because I think they must have been targets for teenage girl worship. I wish I could think of some more. If I do I'll stick them in here. There must have been a bunch before the days of cute boy bands, though there wouldn't have been large scale mass admiration of the same boy until there was some kind of mass media. You had to have printing at least, or maybe museums.

I've also been thinking a lot about middle aged women, and how you never see them on tv these days. Actually they're there, but you can't recognize them at first. They're all skinny and botoxed and have long dyed hair. There's a commercial out right now that has a woman sitting at a table outside drinking juice. I can't tell if she's actually old, or if she's dying of anorexia. I have a feeling it's none of my business, but I want to see a close up of her face, and her neck. Even though middle age has a terrible image in the media, I think that women in mid life have a lot of advantages over the younger ones. You've usually hit your stride. You have a lot of skills and experience. Your bullshit meter should be working better than ever before. You know how the world works, so you don't get as disturbed by idealism and other fantasies. You can usually read people pretty well too. I'd like to see some comfy looking middle aged women on tv again some time. Happy, confident, a little wrinkled and those gray roots showing, getting thick in the middle. We have to be able to relax sometime in our lives. Cheers!

01/22/2012

He was handsome in a rugged German way. He was rich, noble, a war hero, and dead at 25. You can't ask for more in a romantic hero. This was a popular postcard. Maybe the teenage girls of the time had it on their walls. My inner sixteen year old could have quite a crush on him.

He survived longer than nearly anyone who was flying fighter planes at the time. My brother loaned me a book about them years ago. Their life expectancy was a few weeks. The stress and the flashbacks were so horrible they could barely eat and sleep. They lived on coffee laced with brandy. This site talks about it a little bit. World War 1 Fighter Pilots Manfred Von Richthofen flew between 1915 and 1918. Too bad he didn't live out the war. It ended 7 months later.

The military history of Von Richthofen isn't the history I'm interested in. I'm interested that his brother was a pilot too and almost as good as he was. I'm interested that he was bright and athletic, and would fly over the people he shot down and wave to them if they were still alive. Not such a monster.

01/17/2012

These are hilarious. The English is so bad I'm not sure what they're talking about. He has to check his porch? Are the Jehovah's witnesses out there? His cat wants in? I don't get it. Also his death was unprecedented? I suppose it was since he'd never died before. It looks like a version of the Nigerian scam that inspired a friend to tell me, "...and the King of Nigeria is my best buddy." Hahahahaha.

IMPORTANT IMPENDING BUSINESS INFORMATION
I am making this inscription letter in high opinion of an impending claim. My name is Mr. King Powell, attorney at the Leader Chambers Washington DC USA, I want to share this very exclusive information with you which I comprehend that it will be very appealing if you do understand the importance of my letter and proffer.
Mr. Anatoly Ivanov died of heart attack in his Idaho resident late 2007; he lived and works in this region for decades before this unprecedented incident happened. Since then, I have made so much rummage around and delve into with lot of effort to get in touch with any of his family member, but all my efforts proved absolutely abortive.
As per the firm policy every depositor must check his or her porch periodically and in case of demise his or her kin / beneficiary must be contacted for claim and if that is not achieved the policy requires that the deposit or any kind of properties be confiscated after five years and now I realize we are approaching the fifth year of his demise in view of this I want you to associate with me by agreeing to bear the next of kin to the late Anatoly Ivanov.
His deposit/estate was valued at $4.6 million US dollar (four million six hundred thousand). Note that the estate was a payment made to him for executions of government contracts as he wrote in the deposit document. Note again that I want you to stand as Anatoly Ivanov's next of kin and make the claim.
Upon understanding and mutual agreement I am willing to share with you and I will do my best possible to make sure this intention is achieved in no long time. If you consider my offer as benevolent as I consider please furnish me with the below details so that process to transfer the equity to you can begin upon the receipt of the required details. I will also advice you on how to proceed with the claims if you accept my pitch.
Name
Address
Telephone contact
Passport copy / working Id copy.
King Powell
Leader Chamber & Associates
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220.
Tel:206-497-3319
Fax: 530-831-4091

Enjoy, and look out for these crooks. They work off their victim's greed. So don't be too greedy and you'll be safe.

My friend Kim came up with that question. Someone had been painting lots of pictures of and in Paris and noticed that there was always a lot of pink on her palette. That got her thinking that towns could have their own color schemes. Kim loved it, and started taking pictures and thinking about what color her town is. I got interested too and we noticed things are different colors on different days and in different weather. Many things contribute to it. She lives on Puget Sound, so huge bodies of water, sky, and pine trees are the main colors. Water and sky have so many moods. Her photos are very rich.

Here's one of mine. It's always white gray and blue here. No pink at all except at sunrise and sunset. I can't see what kind of birds they are. They're too far away. It's nice and wintry.

01/16/2012

We've been reading about the cruise ship that went down off the coast of Italy. It looks so huge laying there on it's side in the water. There are still people missing. I looked at photos of it on the L.A. Times web site this morning and was shocked at the debris under the water. Bar stools, luggage, table clothes, dishes from the restaurants, and who knows what else floating around down there. It's like photos of the Titanic would have been if anyone had been alive to take any. The captain is being accused of cowardice. They say he left the ship before it sank, and abandoned the passengers and crew. I wouldn't want to be him, he's going to be blamed for everything.

Tom and I have been on a couple of cruises. The ships seem so huge, and though they dip and sway in the waves, they seem solid. People party the whole trip with no thought of anything going wrong. They pause for the obligatory life boat drill, then rush off to have more fun. The ice might melt in their margaritas, or they'll get a sunburn or hangover. What else can happen? It's a vacation.

In the old days people used to get their worldly affairs in order and pray before they went on a sea voyage. Everyone knew you could die out there. There were storms, rocks, pirates, all sorts of unpredictable danger and death. People knew that it was risky, and no one could take their personal safety for granted.

These days we feel that our safety is an entitlement and that nothing bad can possibly happen to us. If it does we know who to sue.

01/11/2012

I told my friend yesterday that this blog is like an animal that needs to be fed from time to time. I get into writing it, then I have many other things to do and forget about it. I find it wasting away on it's little blog bed in the corner and have to hurry and put more words and pictures into it before it dies.

I've been knitting since before the holidays. The quilt finally got put away because I wasn't working on it. It was collecting dust on the couch and generally making a mess. Also it made me feel guilty, and I don't need any more of that. I knit three pair of slipper socks for gifts. I bought a book, Getting Started Knitting Socks by Ann Budd, that inspired me to knit socks with wild colored acrylic knitting worsted. They're warm and comfortable for shuffling around the house in. The acrylic yarn is just about indestructable and can be washed a million times. I have another one of her books, The Knitters Handy Book of Patterns. She gives patterns and clear instructions for all sorts of basic garments, socks, two kinds of hats, gloves and mittens, a sweater, etc. She works out the math so that you can make a swatch with your yarn and needles to get your gauge, figure out what size you want to make, then look it up in the book. You can follow down the columns and knit something that should fit. She also encourages you to use different pattern stitches or make stripes and anything else you can come up with. The patterns are a basic framework. I've knit many socks, stacks of hats, and some gloves from her books. I spent a winter trying to knit a sweater, but it came out twice as big as I am, so my gauge was obviously off by a mile. Also I had no idea how much an acrylic garment can stretch if you give it a shake. It can almost double in size.

I'm in Ravelry, a knitters web site and party place. They have a lot of free patterns, and a lot of people knitting them and talking about it. It's very lively and fun. I saw this scarf and fell in love. Mini Mania Scarf. She used odds and ends of fingering/sock yarn. It's thin fine yarn, like for knitting baby clothes. They sell it in the usual stores like Jo Ann's now, and it comes in lots of colors. They also dye it with built in stripes, which is a lot of fun to knit. She sells little skeins of it in groups of colors on her Etsy site to use to knit this scarf. I'm using odds and ends of worsted weight yarn in mine and have some bulkier yarn in it too. It's a linen stitch, which is easier to do than I thought, but you have to pay attention. I'm a tv watching knitter, paying attention can be a real challenge sometimes. I like the colors I'm using and like the way the slip stitches break up the stripes.

It looks like a woven fabric on the front, the back doesn't look too bad either. I love the fluffy pink/green stripe. It adds a lot to the over all niceness. The pink plays off the green and the fluff adds some nice texture. I cast on 200 stitches and hope it will be long enough. Like I mentioned before, working out the gauge is not one of my talents. If it's too short I don't know what I'll do with it. Maybe make a pool cue cozy?

The frenzy of hits on this site has slowed down to about 30 a day. They're all on that Charles Addams picture and they're coming from "Google images" in many countries. Maybe it attracted a spam bot or something. I'll end up in the data bases with the most popular blog while only having 12 real readers. Ha ha ha hah.